Information & Ethics Committee on March 30th, 2009

[Prof. Michel Drapeau]

What I meant to say was that Mr. Reid, after six years in office, was requested by this committee to come up with a plan to restructure the act. I've got a copy and I've read it. At the time, Mr. Reid went back to first principles, the 31st article, the very title of the act, looked through it, and asked what changes we needed to make.

So it's a coordinated, synchronized, complete wall-to-wall review. And I know a member of Parliament has already reintroduced this bill. Your committee has supported the bill. Personally, I'm in support of the bill--not now because we've got bigger issues to look at. I would rather look at the act, the proposition made before your committee and now made before Parliament, in a constructive wall-to-wall review than doing it piecemeal. This piecemeal approach will not do anything in the short term, and I really have concerns that it may bring disequilibrium, if I can say that word, to the act in the long term.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Does anyone else have a comment on that issue?

[Marc-Aurèle Racicot]

None of the 12 recommendations will address the problems with the regime right now.

[Duff Conacher]

The big difference is that Mr. Reid did not recommend any order-making power in any area. Mr. Marleau has only recommended it partially. I think it needs to go fully. But many of the other proposals and recommendations I made were addressed by the Reid bill, except for, again, the key one, which is to require routine disclosure. It's now viewed as a guide to keeping information secret, law and system, and it has to be changed to be viewed as a proactively open government law. And all the requirements need to be put in place to make that real.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

If I may, I have one last thing, Mr. Drapeau. You whetted our appetite by waving some 210-day extension. The committee probably hasn't heard from anybody as t exactly what constitutes something that would require that. Can you, without violating any confidences or specifics, give us an idea of the nature of a matter, the breadth of a matter, that might require a 210-day extension for our response?

[Prof. Michel Drapeau]

The answer is yes, Mr. Chair. Can I not answer now, and I will get back to you in the morning with a straight answer to it? Inaudible--Editor]...to look at, including confidentiality and—

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Fair enough. I think it would put some dimension on this. We could talk about it theoretically, but you have a practical example.

[Prof. Michel Drapeau]

Three of them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Whatever you can do for us, that would be helpful.

[Duff Conacher]

I can give you one example, very briefly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Sure Mr. Conacher.

[Duff Conacher]

A person associated with Democracy Watch sent me a letter he received from Health Canada—this was a year and a half ago—and the letter said they were requesting an extension. A very simple exchange of e-mails, that's all that had been requested, between public servants over a very short time period. The request was made in 2004, and in 2007 Health Canada sent a letter requesting an extension because they had finally come around to dealing with the initial request. That's how broken some of the information management systems are.

And it's a multi-faceted problem. There is no one panacea. Multiple things have to be done. And one of the big problems is the turnover of ATIP officers, as Mr. Drapeau has already noted.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

I want to thank all the witnesses for taking the time to provide us with your thoughts and your input. I think it has been very helpful to the committee.

Before we adjourn, I would like to advise the committee that on Wednesday we were to have Minister Nicholson, the justice minister, and Mr. Van Loan, the public safety minister, on our privacy work. Mr. Nicholson has advised the committee that he will not be appearing before us on privacy matters since he has already testified. He has referred us to his testimony in the last Parliament. Mr. Van Loan has not given us an answer other than that he'll think about it. So I'm just advising you that neither minister will be here on Wednesday as we had originally thought when we circulated a schedule.

Mr. Ken Rubin and Mr. Vincent Gogolek will be here to continue our discussion on access matters. So you can prepare for that.

Mr. Dechert, before we leave, you have something.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Chair, I believe we have a motion to deal with that was submitted by Mr. Poilievre.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Yes, but it was just this morning. It doesn't have the 48 hours' notice, so we'll deal with that at another meeting.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Was it on Wednesday that we were going to have it dealt with?

[A voice]

I believe that it was Wednesday.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

It was Wednesday. Can we ensure that it's on the agenda for Wednesday?

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

It will be on the agenda for Wednesday, and it will be dealt with after our witnesses.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Fair enough. I just wanted to make sure that it was on the agenda for Wednesday.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

We're adjourned.